Mysteries Knut Hamsum

Another book I read and re-read all the time across the years is Mysteries by Knut Hansum. From the start, you are hooked by the highly unusual, eccentric character of the hero, and you just know that everything in the story is going to take you along different, surprising paths that you will be delighted to explore. Nagel is a stranger arriving in a little village of Norway, dressed in a bright yellow suit, carrying only a violin case.
From there follows the most captivating, strange and poetic story. He falls in love of course with a young woman, already engaged. But nothing is as you expect in this most subtle and magic novel. 'Mysteries' is so the right title for it. It leaves with a taste of mystery, of a story somehow told at another level that you can not quite grasped. This is the ultimate book to read and re-read, as each time something of its essence eludes you, and you remain spellbound...

Le Grand Meaulnes

Pity the followers of that sorry blog. I hope they dont even bother to check what's on it nowadays, because it sure is the most inane and vacant blog of the blogosphere !
Anyway, Josephine has gone awol, last saw her aboard the Titanic, going up and down momentous waves, as usual, and wondering if she would sink or swim. Sink more likely.
But tbc.
Today it's dark, it rains, November is well started and winter on the way, time to curl by the fire,in good company or with a good book, or with both. I would like to talk about comfort reading and about a book close to my heart, a book that is for me the essence of the comfort-read : 'Le Grand Meaulnes' by Alain-Fournier. I have read it four or five times already, and probably will again. Each time its haunting quality works its magic and infiltrates my heart in a subtle way, as very few books have managed.
For most people it will be a book just like any other. One has to read it probably at the right time and in the right mood. Timing. As with everything really. La danse des astres et la rencontre des etres, des livres, des pets. It's all about meeting in the right place, at the right time. Such a delicate, fragile balance of things, whirling madly as they are, and suddenly, a space , a moment in time, une rencontre, a meeting of souls, of minds, of bodies and something is born. Somewhere in a distant galaxy, from that spark on earth, comets crash into each other and become a planet, a new world is born to the universe, a new harmony joins the music of the spheres, and a new rhythm beats dans la ronde des etoiles.
Meaulnes is a young man of 17, 18 years old, and his mother brings him to stay in a little school deep in the quiet countryside of Sologne, at the beginning of the previous century. He becomes friend with the narrator, another young boy, immediately full of admiration for Meaulnes. But Meaulnes is a restless soul, and soon, he escapes, il fait l'ecole buissonniere, and wanders off in the countryside where he get lost. Night falls, miles away from anywhere, he suddenly stumbles upon a castle full of lights where 'une fete' a lieu. Children are at the center of the rejouissances and Meaulnes is quickly involved. He has a wonderful time and falls asleep, wakes up the morning after to resume his participation in the festivities. There is a boating party and suddenly, there, he meets the woman of his dream. Young, beautiful, shy, and she notices him also of course. Together in a boat, they hardly dare speak to each other. The day goes by and their sweet encounter draws to a close. Not much has happened , but enough to change the course of a destiny.
Later on, Meaulnes gets a lift from some local people and manages to get back to the school. Only, he falls asleep in the carriage and will never remember the way to the castle. That was before the satnav. before maps. When the world could still be full of mystery.
From then on, Meaulnes will not cease to look for the 'Domaine Enchante' and try to find again the elusive, unknown young woman he met there.
The story is all about looking for a lost paradise, the longing that we have for an ideal place where nothing goes wrong, where a permanent 'fete' takes place and where children and animals run free and happy.
Later in the story, Meaulnes meets his mysterious love again, but then, the imperfect narrative becomes a little odd at times, and is not the masterpiece one could expect.
Alain-Fournier was 24 years old when he wrote this story. As Meaulnes in the book, he had met briefly a young woman with whom he fell deeply in love but lost track of. He spend 8 years to find her again but when he did, she was married with children. A year later, he was killed. Aged 28. It was 1914.

Novembre

Novembre, dimanche matin, pluie et solitude.
Le lapin mort dans le jardin, a bundle of love dead to the world.
Premier novembre , le jour des morts et des revenants. Le grand hiver sur le seuil et la maison, froide. Dimanche matin, peine et solitude.
Le cafe pas bu, les journaux, pas lus. Le ciel, ferme, muet.
Hier encore, le feu, le lumiere, la joie et la ronde gaie de la vie.
Ce matin plus rien. Hiver acte un, ouverture. deuil et solitude.
le cafe pas bu, les journaux, pas lus.
Le coeur blesse.
Le monde muet.

Titanic

Josephine is now aboard her very own Titanic, a tall ship of extra-terrestrial dimensions, heading at full speed for the looming iceberg on the horizon. Sailing high and low through the diffident waves, no one aboard knows the real meaning of the coming iceberg, lost as they all are in the sea fog... No one ever knows the real meaning of any experience. Experiences exist only to be renacted ad infinitum. No one knows what this iceberg is made of. It could be real ice, it could be only the ghost of a non-existing ice-wall, a figment of their collective mind. It could well be that Josephine very own Titanic will sail through with resounding success... And that it was all vain fears. But it could also be the final crash, the ultimate encounter. It could be that it wont be sink or swim.
Only sink.

Longing

The sum of our longing gathers in our flesh like an immense ball of unexploded fireworks, full of all the shimmering colours that never were, of all the sparks that never resonated, of all the joy that never was.
We build delicate sandcastles on the shore of our desire, thinking they will last for ever but knowing too well that the next tide will soon wash them over.
Yet all the devotion, the care and attention we invest in these elaborate structures of sublime material, all the hopes and abundance of wishes and the frantic energies dedicated to the beauty of the instant, to the fragility of that grandest of folly - not even reflecting close the depths of our feeling...
The sea retires, the sand is left empty, and our longing , intact.

Les montagnes russes

Josephine has gone away on a journey. Usually a fastidious traveller, always knowing exactly the where , how and why, she was for that one journey , totally unprepared.
For this new exploration in Terra Incognita, no plans, no maps, no booking, no resting place.. Just a permanent , relentless track to follow. The scenery was stunning. Nothing that Josephine has ever seen before. Wild, exotic, lush, colorful, varied, always a breathtaking sight on the horizon. But no easy walk.
And in no time, Josephine was in Montagnes russes. The peaks as high as the clouds, the depths, as dark and profound as an abyss. The middle ground would have been a potential paradise but Josephine never set foot on it.
Then, surging from nowhere, rushed past her hordes of wild, savage but beautiful horses, galloping at full speed and in danger of crushing Josephine over. All muscles and pure force, they were a sight to behold. The noise of their stamping hooves was defeaning, and as quick as lightning, gone.
Then, the solitude and the beauty of the place. A paradise in the making.
As she travelled further, utterly caught in the speed and intensity of this most unusual journey, Josephine suddenly stopped.
Ahead, a precipice. Will she have to fall or to put wings on ?
She is on the edge.

Dawn again ?

The Is-land is in trouble. A dark, oppressive night has descended on it, and all the fish have jumped out of the sea, all fretting on the beach, gasping for air, literally dying of asphyxia.
Josephine is nowhere to be found and the sheer weight of the ocean is threatening to engulf the whole tiny island.
Will the island survive the long dark night and will, in the small hours, all the fish disappear into the waves again, a new sun rising and Josephine again walking towards the shore, scanning the watery horizon for a glass bottle ?
Will dawn ever break again ?

Twin peaks

Twin peaks,is there any more melancholic accents ? So perfectly suited to certain moods..The longing and the absence, the departed, the cold, snow and gloom...Josephine walks alone in the mountains, the wind roaring, night falling and the immense solitude of the icy space...There is no looking back, 'les jeux sont faits, rien ne va plus !' Josephine had placed her bet and lost. Everything. Nothing to retain, not a memory, not a story. Walk and ascend towards the ultimate peak of desolation, walk and ascend towards your ultimate goal : death. alone in the snow.
That is how the story ends.
Bonsoir Mesdames, Bonsoir, Messieurs, This is it.

The invisible twin

When you walk down the street, what is your invisible twin doing ?
When you lie down in bed at night, sleeping, where is your invisible twin travelling ?
When you do your everyday job and concentrate, what is your invisible twin free to explore ?
When you take your very last breath on earth, will your invisible twin come and take your hand to see you off to other grounds ?
When do we ever get an answer ?
This is the glass-room planet. All sealed, a locked-room in infinity.
Or is our mind the locked-room ?
What if we were to find the little golden Door inside our brain, to release the universe, to let all the cosmos flowing in...
We are so built upside-down, always looking at the wrong side of the telescope. Seeing everything small when it should be vast.
But one day maybe we will break the glass walls of the planet, and start to really communicate, and start singing as wild angels in a divine choir...

Second chance.

Jour d'automne sur l'Etat d'Ame. Melancholy and regrets as ever. Josephine sits outside her little blue house on the island and pensively watches the empty sea. There never is anything on the horizon, no tall boats with singing bands of sailors in colorful outfits, no wild surfers, no stranded Robinson. Nothing but the lonely horizon of the grey sea. All Josephine can do is think, dream, ponder and long for.
What if we were given a second chance ? What if the laws of the universe were suddenly reversed and we could start again ?
There is a book with precisely that story : 'the strange life of Osokin' by Ouspensky. The hero is miraculously given a second chance to rectify his love story gone wrong. (It's always about love obviously, what else would we want to go over again and mend ? Exams ? jobs ? shopping lists ?)
So the hero revisits his story and would you believe it ? Does exactly the same mistakes again ! In spite of all the previous knowledge and the acquired experience of the first run ! No, nothing to be done, he falls in the trap again...Maybe that is precisely why we don't get a second chance, because we would simply waste the universe's Time. To make a second chance worth it, we would have the tall order of becoming an entirely different character.
To change our patterns rather than our circumstances.

I am a minefield for myself, there is nowhere safe to tread.
Can a Deus ex Machina get me out ?
No second chance and no Deus Ex Machina.

The grey, empty horizon.
Will Josephine ever escape, the great, perfect, sublime escape ?
Josephine dort et pleure.

In pursuit of happiness

'The mass of men lead lives of quiet desesperation' said Thoreau in Walden. This is a hard phrase to face. Are we ever certain not to be part of that critical mass ?
Thoreau went to spend a year by a pond, in the forests of Massachusetts, to contemplate his own destiny. Was he any wiser after that ? At least, he learned basic survival skills without having to go through military training.
Walt Whitman walked across the United States, singing 'the Body Electric'. Did he get any fitter in the process ? He certainly got to bed a few companions on the way.
Ludwig II built his castles in the clouds of Bavaria and became prisoner of his own creation. He loved many, all in vain , was never understood and drowned in his own lake. Elisabeth was waiting on the other side, ready to help him escape. Did he know that ? How could he drown in such shallow waters, Ludwig, the swan-king ?
The Lohengrin of my dreams.
So much efforts, so much torments and turmoil, so many hopes and aspirations. You would think it's not even the result that matters most, but rather the permanent, mad, obstinate, violent pursuit of dreams and happiness, the tension towards the goal, l'elan plutot que le but, le desir plutot que la satisfaction.
Ultimately, it's all castles in the air.
And we bounce back on earth.

Or does anyone get to stay up-there, in seventh heaven?

Palace of Dreams

In the Palace of Dreams, the Masked Carnival is in full swing. The high candelabras pour a soft, golden light on a surreal scenery of extravagant costumes, elegant silhouettes and fantastical masks. Exquisite, exotic, rare scents deepen the mystery of the strange event, while a haunting, rarefied music fills the crowded atmosphere. Everyone who is someone on the planet has been invited. Yet now , nobody can even guess who they are talking to. Safely concealed behind my own bizarre accoutrement, I glide among the beautiful, perfumed bodies, scanning for at least a hint of a revealed identity. There is none. All have followed the uber strict code of admission : No recognition.
And in the marvellous oblivion of identity, suddenly the feast takes off, becomes wild and daring, the flirting and seduction, the 'risque' repartee and outrageous propos know no bound.
The second rule, as severe as the first, is : nothing beyond talk.
This could be the rehearsal of a scene for a film, or the decadent game of a cruel Master of manipulation. Yet , everyone is in bliss and enjoying themselves as if there was no tomorrow. The lost saveur of the forbidden fruit has been redicovered and its delicate taste is on everyone's tongue. While the rejouissance progresses lightly, I am engaged in the most ravishing exchange with an enchanting persona, of whom I know nothing but love everything about.
Later, as the stars whirl in the dark sky, a subtle change arises.
At dawn, total chaos, the whole place seems to collapse on itself, the mirrors crack, the lights dim, the music stops, the characters fade and the whole party slowly silently sink under mounting water.
There is a glow, a fire under the ice and soon nothing remains on the surface but a little ripple, like the last breath of a dying angel.
It's all gone. The charade is over.
Alone I stand. A statue of salt, all my tears gathered into a solid desolation.
There really was no tomorrow.

Chess Game

Josephine is playing chess with her brother, Erve d'Or , both children of the mysterious Herr de la Couronne. But Erve is sitting on the right side of the chess set, holding the white pieces, while Josephine is on the wrong side of the set, holding the black ones. Erve as ever, is in the light, she is in the shadow. He is the head of the golden coin, she is the tail of it, 'le revers de la medaille'. Erve still lives in the Kingdom, enjoying its beautiful fruits. Josephine is in exile on an island in space. They meet but rarely , to play their favorite game together, with not a word uttered on what is really at stake between them.
The tournament will be long, as neither of them is ever ageing, neither of them is ever weakening.
In the game of life, Erve wins. In the after-life, they both lose.

Etat Dame.

Sunset. On Josephine's island, all is quiet, peaceful, nothing moves. The sea is silkily silent and the trees frissonnent as if made of velvet.
Softly walks Josephine out of the woods, towards the shore, a bottle in her hand.
In the bottle, a message.
Kneeling at the shore, perhaps praying, Josephine pushes the bottle on the water. Soundless waves soon carry it away.

En Montgolfiere

Gather your bags, your bagages and burden, it's time to get into the 'nacelle', we are going up on a sky-trip, on an air-tour, we are going to ascend and meet the clouds, join the birds in the pure azur and the bright light.
Gather your thoughts, and leave the leaden ones behind, we live on light, we feed on light, we become light. Cut the bounds, renounce the ties, undo the shackles, the nacelle will now ascend and rise to unknown heights, we will bear oh so gladly, the so desirable lightness of being, the freedom of flying unbounded, the ultimate perk of no weight, no worry.
Nothing, nothing can reach the air-balloon in full flight. Your mind is this balloon. Nothing can weight the mind, la Montgolifiere des airs knows no frontier, no rule, and no limitation.
Josephine waves from a cloud, and wish you a happy ascent.

Lili and the little dog

One bright sunny morning, Lili stepped out of her book, all dressed-up in a fancy outfit made exclusively of pompoms, and ran accross the floor to take cover under the bed. There, some fluff of black suddenly moved, it was a tiny black dog ! So tiny, that it was not so scarry after all. Lili and the little dog became friends, and they started looking for a cover all over the wooden floor but there was none to be found, as all the books had flown out of the window to enjoy the beautiful morning sunshine. They explored the cosy house, all colours and coquelicots, until they eventually reached the door, on the edge of the world.
But to go out they did not need any cover anymore, as they started gliding happily all over the big wide world on the plush red cushion of our hearts

Eunoia

Eunoia, or beautiful thinking.
Do our thoughts shape the invisible as our cities shape the terrestrial landscape ?
I believe so.
Bad thoughts create your present and future hell, beautiful thinking is your passport to paradise.
Everyone needs an angel in their brain, to help sort out the mess, the crass daily mess of the low realms.
But how does one order angel service ?
Do you just wait and hope one will cross your path ?
Do angels ever come our way to help ?
It's a beautiful thought to believe so.

L' Etat Dame

Dawn. Josephine walks along the beach of her island, l''Etat Dame', all white sands in the light rising and the silence. L'Etat Dame' is a fortress, a hermetic realm, an ivory tower. But every morning, Josephine goes down to the shore, in the wild hope that a glass bottle with a message within, would have flotted her way. Unlikely occurence, but hope is the fiercest of pull on the soul, and Josephine is not immune to that.
There never is any message in the bottle, nor any bottle at all, for that matter.
Yet for the thousands of years that she has existed, Josephine, every morning , has walked to the seashore to check. The thought of missing the one time that there would be something, is too galling.
Now, at dawn, you know where to find Josephine.

Bach, a toute allure.

Bach ou la vitesse absolue, BMW thrown all out on the sleek motorway, by night, the race is on , motor roaring, je t'invite a mes cotes for the ultimate course through heaven, a travers la nuit, a travers la pluie, en pleine vitesse, en Bach parfait.
Come and be with me, in a sublime vehicule designed for climatic speed, Vorsprung durch Technik, chariot des dieux, puissant, invincible, totale modernite, combattant des cieux difficiles, des intemperies cruelles et une vie amere.
Come and be with me, Bach for us, unrolled the red carpet of a sleek motorway, lights glistening under the rain, le rythme parfait des coeurs a l'unisson la nuit, l'oubli de tout, le vin merveilleux de Sans- Souci, le parfum du cuir luxueux, l'autoroute se deroule en attendant la felicite montante, d'une nouvelle dimension ardente,
Le point de non-retour, en Bach parfait.

Vision

Suspended in mid-air, in the nef of a Cathedral,
music and light pouring down from above and transpiercing my body
with so much mirth and pain,
I slowly reverse breathing to the state of ante-birth,
when my whole existence was but a flutter of dust...

Adieu ma vie, adieu mon ame, tu etais belle, nous avons fais route ensemble et partage so much torments, et de joies aussi parfois, maintenant, je dois partir,
et te retrouver peut-etre, sous d'autres cieux, sous d'autres formes et tout recommencer, la meme folie, la passion du neant, l'aventure des moulins a vent,
Et le grand Ensemble.
Mon ame , ma soeur, mon amour.

Parfum de Japon

Spitafields, a japanese festival.
The austere beauty of the women's haughty faces, worn almost like a mask. A delicate poetry of zen, flowers, tea and kimonos, a subtle overflowing hint of decadence pervading everything. Crazy clothes, etranges scents, mixed babies and a general happiness.
We should have feasts, fairs and festivals more often...

'Jadis, si je me souviens bien, ma vie etait un festin, ou s'ouvraient tous les coeurs, ou tous les vins coulaient. Un soir, j'ai assis la Beaute sur mes genoux- et je l'ai trouvee amere.'

Et je l'ai aimee.
Elle s'est en allee.
Josephine dreams, to repair the pain, to lay a soothing balm on a sizzling heart.

Invitation

Josephine walks the desert streets of her memory, all doors closed, all houses abandonned. The city is empty, derelict, silent. There is no memories left. Have they flown to better pastures, in distant countries of sun and fun ? No.
Josephine's memories do not exist at all. She is a blank slate. An open book. An empty room. An invitation.
Welcome into Josephine's land, the landscape of your dreams.
Who is Josephine ?
The smile of the cat.
The sign of the hand.
The code on the pad.
You are now entering into the unknown.
Danger zone or exctatic realm, your choice.
But Josephine leads the way.
Follow her.

Gerard de Nerval, poet, my spiritual father.

'Je suis le Veuf, le Tenebreux, l'Inconsole,
Le Prince d'Aquitaine a la tour abolie,
Ma seule etoile est morte, et mon luth constelle,
Porte le soleil noir de la Melancholie.'

One of my favorite poem. Four lines that could sum-up the story of my life.
If the Universe is a velvet coat of dark material, keeping us all wrapped, blind and mute, then poetry is the blade that pierces through and brings us some light from the great Beyond.
Music and all arts also, of course. But where all religions miserably fail, ending in the dead-end of the hem of the coat, the arts dare to go to the other side and bring back some nibblets of gold, for us to marvel about.

Talking about books...

Talking about books, I want to mention Karen Wheeler's book 'Tout Sweet', currently my favorite, read it twice already, and recommending it massively to all and everyone. It is a sheer delight to read, funny, witty, engrossing, vivid, full of comical anecdotes on her new life in a small village of Poitou Charentes, renovating an old house,'Maison Coquelicot' and getting to know the numerous and often eccentric british expats settled over there. Utterly unpretentious and a genuine experience, it is a wonderful feel-good read that you will be sorry to finish, because life with Karen is a very sweet pleasure indeed !
A refreshing take on the 'french memoirs', Karen gives it a delicious twist with a S.A.T.C. treatment !
Now impatiently awaiting the second part hopefully already in process !
Could also mention Ariel Leve 'Cassandra Chronicles', the sum of her columns for the Sunday Times. Self-deprecating pessimist with a terrific sense of humour...I have not read something so amusing for a long time !

What is the point ?

This could well proves to be a total waste of time. Why do I pretend that I write a blog ? This is utter vanity. I have nothing to say of interest, no information on anything to pass on. My life is a desert island with just rocks and sands, somewhere to lie down, look at the sky and die of sheer boredom.
I am currently experiencing the highs and lows of a singular new torment, of which I might say something later.

I could talk about books, a field I know quite a bit about, and I'm a little bit miffed that Stephen Fry mentionned on his Twitter 'Sum' by David Eagleman and got it noticed immediately of course, when I have been recommending that little wonder of a book to people for months, and to not much effects.
Obviously not a setter of trends yet.

On second thought...

This odd feeling of writing for oneself and everyone at the same time, a feeling not unlike these dreams where we walk naked in the middle of a crowd, but no one notices...
I am on the egde of a precipice. About to fall in, a fall experienced so many times before, and that had always left me bruised and damaged. Why would I want to fall again ? Does one have a choice or are we, in this matter, as bits of irons caught in a magnetic attraction ?
A necessary folly that brings colours and fire into one's soul, delusions also. And ultimately, pain.
I should know better.

And start falling all over again...
The dream resumes.

Ready to go, blog outing number one !

Hello everyone,
(no one more likely) as this is an entirely new, secret operation.
Feels like jumping in wide black, strange ocean, full of invisible swimmers all around, close by, yet remote. Or am I dreaming ?
First question :
Is the world wide web like the universe, infinite ?
Can every single person keep a blog, stuff the internet with thoughts and writings, and there's still plenty of space around ?
Who can tell me more about the secrets of the web and its finitude or infinitude ?
A book I guess could tell me the answer, but I'm lazy.
Now autumn on the way, time to think about love rather than science.
I'm October born and this season always bring longings and nostalgia , a wish for the exquisite, significant 'Other' still bitterly missing, probably will ever be missing.
Some unfortunate people experience life as a lack rather than a fulfillment. That's my club.
Until now anyway.
I have no idea where I'm going with this blog and that's the point. I'm intrigued to see how it evolves, if it's another dead end, or if it will prove to become something of substance.
There's lots I want to talk about but for today that' ll do.
The first step has been taken,
If it leaves any imprint anywhere is another matter...